The invention relates to improved flyswatters, particularly to flyswatters that can be effectively used to either swat flying insects or insects resting on a surface.
Quite a variety of flyswatting devices are known, as evidenced by U.S. Pat. Nos. 1,882,291; 2,651,878; 2,806,320; and 4,510,711. Most known flyswatters are designed to be effective only when swatting a fly that rests on a surface. To this end, most prior flyswatters include a rigid handle and a relatively flexible swatting pad. Above-mentioned U.S. Pat. No. 2,651,878 discloses a novelty flyswatter which, although similar in shape to prior flyswatters, is deployed in an entirely different manner. It is much smaller in size than a conventional flyswatter, and has a spring leaf handle and a relatively rigid wedge-shaped paddle or swatting pad. The user grips the handle with one hand and uses the finger of the other hand to engage the extreme end of the relatively rigid wedge-shaped paddle and pry it back toward the handle, flexing the spring leaf handle to form an arc of nearly 180.degree.. The thus sprung device is then aimed at an insert on a surface and released, so that the spring handle straightens out, accelerating the wedge-shaped paddle or swatting pad onto the fly or insect. The structure disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 2,651,878 obviously is impractical for use as an ordinary flyswatter.
Most people have used ordinary flyswatters, and occasionally have been frustrated by the fact that flying insects, especially houseflies and mosquitoes, often refuse to land on a surface on which they can be conveniently swatted. Rigid flyswatters that have the appearance of a miniature tennis racquet have been proposed for swatting flying insects, but these are of limited usefullness, because they cannot be effectively used to swat an insect when it rests on a surface. Frequently, it seems, a pesky fly or mosquito will fly about for a time and then land on a surface of a delicate article on which the insect cannot be safely swatted, or it will land on a ceiling or in a corner where an "ordinary" flyswatter cannot be effectively used. One then must wait for the insect to move, or wave the flyswatter at the fly, hoping that it will move and land on some other more convenient surface. Most people have attempted to swat such a pesky fly or other insect in flight with an ordinary flyswatter, usually without much success. The swatting pads of most flyswatters are flexible, of course, in order to enable them to be used for their ordinary purpose of swatting flies resting on various surfaces, without causing damage to the surface and without unduly crushing the swatted insect, in order to avoid the need to scrub the surface on which the insect was crushed.
Until now, no one has provided a dual purpose flyswatter that is effective when used in the manner of ordinary flyswatters, yet is effective for swatting flies in flight.